Am Lit Period 2
Mrs. Lamagdeleine
Oh how the mighty have fallen. Gatsby, surrounded by glamour and flash in life, lies now virtually alone but for his father, Nick, and the Owl-eyed man we met in Gatsby's first party, the one who showed us that Gatsby is real under his veneer. Henry Gatz, the father of Gatsby, is there to show us a side of him that we couldn't have seen through the eyes of Nick, which is a glimpse of Gatsby as he was preparing for his dream, as he was building his exoskeleton of rich behavior and perfecting the power that it would give him. Nick, the one who has been with Gatsby ever since the first party, is there as a proxy for the audience, who know, love, and pity him as only Nick could at that point. The Owl-eyed man, a symbol of an absent-minded, passive God, makes a move at this point, finally acting as opposed to standing in the middle of a library or climbing out of the passenger seat of a car, bewildered. His presence, really, God's presence, gives Gatsby's funeral a blessing that seems to exalt it far beyond the reach of his ex-friends such as Daisy and Meyer Wolfsheim.
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